Heating Funds Blocked As Energy Bills Expected to Soar
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 – An emergency $3.1 billion in funding for heating and energy assistance to low-income households was blocked Thursday for the second time in two weeks.
For now funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program will remain at a little over $2 billion. The program is slated to begin for the year on November 1.
The procedural block comes two days after a report said the average national home energy bill for a low-income household this winter will be $1,000 more than they can afford. The report, published Tuesday by Boston-based consulting firm, Fisher, Sheehan and Colton, argued that the “Home Energy Affordability Gap” will increase nearly 50 percent from last year’s gap.
At $1,760, Massachusetts’ gap is higher than the national average of $1,032 per household, ranking it 48 out of the 50 states and District of Columbia.
“There is no excuse for the Republican majority to look the other way but they do,” Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass) said in a released statement. Kennedy and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass) have been outspoken in recent weeks about the need for additional funding to this program.
Estella Fritzinger, executive director of the Community Action Committee of Cape Cod and the Islands, said funding for the federal program, also called LIHEAP, is a serious issue, especially because of the high cost of living on the Cape.
“If there’s not a raise done on the LIHEAP dollars we are literally going to be in a situation where someone is going to die in their home this winter,” she said. “The government needs to release the monies now.”
Nationwide the number of households participating in the program rose from 4 million to 5 million in the past year, according to Kennedy
“We will not give up the fight,” he said. “We’ll be back again and again and again, until our nation’s neediest families are better protected this winter.”
####
